Remarks by Commissioner Brian Fischer
Citizens Crime Commission of New York City
Mutual of America Building
February 18, 2009

Good morning and thank you for inviting me to address this distinguished
group. It is an honor.

Nearly a generation ago, the State’s prison population was exploding.
The crack epidemic hit New York. The tough drug laws signed by the late Gov.
Nelson Rockefeller sent more and more drug offenders away. And the State embarked
on a prison building boom.

The conversation has changed dramatically since then. Now, our prison population
is in the midst of a dramatic and prolonged decline. We’re talking about
reforming the Rockefeller drug laws. We’re looking to close unneeded
prisons.

The change began in the late 1980s, when the State Legislature began enacting
a series of laws to provide alternatives to incarceration for drug offenders
and other non-violent felons and to give them the ability to earn time off
their sentence through good behavior and program participation. A little over
four years ago, lawmakers rolled back parts of the Rockefeller Drug Laws.
And in the last decade, the statewide crime rate dropped by 35 percent.

These changes have resulted in a 16 percent decline in the State prison
population, despite – or perhaps in part because of - the toughening
of penalties for violent felons in the mid- and late 1990s. We now have around
60,000 offenders – about 11,500 fewer than when our system hit its peak
at the end of 1999. In fact, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics,
New York had the largest decrease in the rate of incarceration of any state
in the nation from 2000 to 2007, even as the incarceration rate increased
in 37 other states.

All of this is a testament to New York State’s success in fighting
crime – by keeping the right people in prison longer, and by preparing
our offenders for their return to society. The proof is in the numbers: every
year since 1999, fewer than 11 percent of ex-offenders have returned to prison
for a new crime within three years of release. That's less than half the rate
for offenders released from 1989 through 1991.

We have achieved this success in large part by focusing on what we call
reentry. 99 percent of our offenders eventually go back home. Reentry is the
concept of preparing them as best we can to become responsible and productive
citizens once they’re back in society. The effort starts before they
walk in our door. It continues through, and after, incarceration in conjunction
with our partners at the Division of Parole. It involves big-picture efforts
such as education, including a variety of mostly privately- and federally-funded
college courses, and vocational training in a wide range of skills. It involves
seemingly small but significant details, such as providing offenders who are
being released with proper documentation and clothing suitable for job interviews.
It involves working to maintain the critical bonds between offenders and their
families, including providing free buses that enable personal visits from
offenders’ family members. It involves key intangibles, such as instilling
in offenders a sense of responsibility for themselves, a respect for others
and a work ethic. It involves common-sense procedures, such as our recent
agreement to push parole board hearings back to four months before an offender’s
earliest release date, rather than two months. That allows offenders to complete
transitional programs, which for some involve three to four months at specialized
reentry units that put the offenders face to face with people on the outside
who will help them after release. We have two such units in Western New York
and are planning to open one near Albany next month and another for female
offenders here in Manhattan at Bayview in the spring.

Our success means the time has come for major changes in the prison system
– a system that employs more than 31,000 people from the shores of Lake
Erie near the Pennsylvania line, to the North Country near the Canadian border,
to Queens and Staten Island. These employees are responsible for the lives
and care of 60,000 offenders 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a
year. This does not come cheap. At around $2.5 billion per year, my Department
is the costliest executive agency in State government in terms of state operations.

At a time when New York is facing its worst economic crisis since the Great
Depression, Governor Paterson has rightly recognized this as an opportunity
to save taxpayers significant money by allowing me to manage the prison system
more intelligently.

The Governor has proposed closing our four correctional camps and some of
our prison annexes, which are small security components situated alongside
existing prisons. We fully support him. We have more than 7,000 vacant beds
in our system, spread over 70 correctional institutions. Our minimum security
population has dropped by more than 50 percent over the last nine years. As
many offenders entering our system are diagnosed with mental illness, the
camps lack the capability to deliver the medical and mental health services
they need. The camps are also not equipped to deliver the educational, vocational
and reentry skills our offenders will need after they’re released. The
annexes were built when we were becoming overcrowded. Now, we have different
priorities – namely court and legislative mandates to provide enhanced
and more extensive treatment and services to sex offenders and inmates with
mental illness. By closing these facilities and saving taxpayers nearly $30
million a year, we can address those new priorities. And we can achieve closure
with virtually no layoffs. We employ nearly 20,000 correction officers. With
more than 40 leaving the payroll every two weeks, mainly to retire, we can
capitalize on this attrition by cutting security positions without layoffs.
I hope that in your conversations with community leaders and State legislators,
you will reinforce the common sense and logic of this plan. Now more than
ever, we need to bring State government’s expenses in line with its
shrinking revenues.

As part of the effort to operate the criminal justice system more rationally,
and based on proven experience, the Governor has also endorsed three key recommendations
of the New York State Commission on Sentencing Reform, of which I was one
of 11 voting members:

Graduated sanctions for minor and technical parole violations as an alternative
to a costly and inappropriate return to prison;

A six-month credit time allowance for offenders – including some violent
offenders but no first-degree murderers or sex offenders – who behave
themselves and complete enhanced program requirements during incarceration,
and;

Expanded eligibility for our Shock Incarceration program.

The Governor has also endorsed expanding medical parole from terminally
ill offenders to certain incapacitated offenders who pose no reasonable threat
to society.

These proposals will not only free up more prison space, but will also provide
incentives for offenders to improve themselves and, in the process, keep our
prisons safer.

The credit time proposal, for instance, is an outgrowth of Merit Time, which
currently allows non-violent offenders to earn up to 1/6 off their sentence
for good behavior and program participation. Since 1996, when the Legislature
created Merit Time, we have seen a 35 percent reduction in offender assaults
on staff and a 60 percent drop in offender assaults on other offenders. What
is now proposed is a six-month credit for offenders who are not eligible for
Merit Time but who have fulfilled all Merit Time requirements and have proven
themselves even further by becoming hospice aides working with terminally
ill offenders or teacher aides who tutor other offenders, or by seeking out
and completing higher education programs shown to reduce recidivism.

The proposed expansion of Shock is particularly promising. Shock is a six-month,
military-style boot camp regimen for certain non-violent offenders, mainly
drug users, under the age of 40. It was created by The Legislature in 1987
as a treatment program designed to address offenders’ addiction issues
and as an alternative to spending up to three years in prison. If participants
stick with the program and graduate, they’re out. And they’re
nearly 20 percent less likely than general confinement offenders to come back.
So far, we’ve seen nearly 39,000 offenders graduate from our four Upstate
Shock camps. We calculate that Shock has saved taxpayers $1.29 billion directly
in reduced need for prison space alone. And that doesn’t count the cost
avoidance from Shock graduates’ lower recidivism rate. The Sentencing
Commission has proposed increasing the age limit for Shock to 49 and allowing
eligible offenders in general confinement to apply for transfer to Shock when
they reach three years to their earliest release. These efforts capitalize
on and expand our successful programs while helping reduce the need for expensive
prison beds.

The proposed expansion of what is often referred to as Medical Parole is
again another example of building upon what has already proven to be effective.
We can match public safety with the early release of an offender whose medical
condition is so debilitating that the offender poses no serious risk of re-offending,
thus saving taxpayers money while managing our system in a more effective
manner.

There has been a lot in the news lately about an expected push for more
reforms to the Rockefeller drug laws. Difficult cuts in State contracts with
private, not-for-profit substance abuse treatment programs have also made
the news. But you may not know that more than 8,500 inmates are, at this moment,
receiving treatment through my Department, mostly within prison walls. Last
year, more than 30,000 inmates participated in Department substance abuse
programs. We offer basic but intensive six-month, structured residential treatment
programs, followed by community reintegration services and post-release aftercare.
We have special programs for offenders with histories of both substance abuse
and domestic violence, for sex offenders with substance addiction problems,
and for offenders who find a way to continue using alcohol or drugs within
prison. We have a program for DWI offenders in Western New York at Gowanda
and Albion Correctional Facilities, Special Needs Units for developmentally
disabled offenders at three prisons, relapse treatment and prevention programs
for work release participants who test positive for illegal substances, a
special program for parole violators at Chateauguay, and a treatment program
for mothers with newborn infants. We operate a drug treatment campus, Willard,
in the Finger Lakes region, for parolees with substance abuse issues, and
we partnered with other agencies to open a residential treatment program at
the former Edgecombe Correctional Facility in Upper Manhattan last year for
a similar clientele. There are more programs. But you get the picture. Although
the number of drug offenders in our system is decreasing, we know that about
85 percent of our entire offender population has substance abuse histories,
and we do what we can to help them control and manage their addictions.

I would like to point out that the goal of the Sentencing Commission, which
has been criticized recently on many fronts, was to give voice to the many
ways in which drug reform can be achieved. So rather than providing the Governor
and the Legislature with a single, all-encompassing drug reform plan, the
Commission developed five separate proposals that took into account the various
positions of the judiciary, the district attorneys association, community
activists and others on both sides of the issue. As a result, I believe the
Commission met its original mandate, and I think the proof is in the public
debate, the first step in everyone coming together to openly put forth recommendations
that must eventually lead to an agreed-upon solution.

I should also point out that the Sentencing Commission also recommended
that determinate sentences be attached to all but the most serious crimes,
including murder and most sex offenses. As someone responsible for managing
a prison system, and having spent my share of time inside prisons, I ask that
you support this recommendation. While fixed sentencing was originally called
“Truth in Sentencing,” it might be better defined as “Fairness
in Sentencing.” Determinate sentencing addresses the serious problem
of disparity of sentences. It also provides offenders with a clear understanding
that to earn time off their court-imposed sentence, they must complete mandated
treatment programs as well as avoid serious disciplinary problems. With the
many mandatory and elective programs available within the system, offenders
are forced to accept the fact that their length of stay, and other benefits,
are somewhat under their control. This fosters the concept of accepting personal
responsibility, a concept often ignored by too many young offenders.

The words corrections and compassion aren’t always associated with
each other. But we care a great deal not only about turning offenders into
responsible citizens, but also helping our fellow citizens in need. I will
close by bringing to your attention what I believe is a creative proposal
to help less-fortunate New Yorkers in these difficult economic times. We operate
a massive food production center to feed our population. It is centrally located
near Utica and has more capacity than we currently require. Not only have
we begun selling inexpensive but nutritious food products to local county
jails to save property taxpayers money, but Governor Paterson is asking the
Legislature to authorize us to offer for sale, at cost, these same food products
to soup kitchens, rescue missions and other charitable organizations. It won’t
cost State taxpayers anything – in fact, the more food we produce, the
cheaper each meal becomes through economies of scale. But even in the midst
of a fiscal crisis, the Governor is finding ways to help the neediest. I ask
your careful consideration of his sensible proposals – and your support.